It’s been nice to see ordinary Americans open up to life in China but everyone is acting blind to their censorship. Makes me thankful for the fediverse and being able to self host my own instance.
That app doesn’t like gambling, politics, or sexually explicit material.
Your post probably fell under politics.
Xiaohongshu bans all politics, even references. There’s more serious platforms for those type of people, whereas xiaohongshu is to have fun and connect with others.
Thanks! Didn’t know that at first
I’ve been in a lot of political discussions on Xiaohongshu. It seems people learn a little Marxism even in high school and are happy to share about it.
Not everything has been super fabulous about China, but nothing critical of Mao, and a big consensus that living in China is kinder to people who aren’t wealthy than the US
Please name the serious platforms in China that allow the discussion of politics.
There are some where you’re allowed to talk about how great of a job the CCP are doing.
No different from any Western social media. Try saying something positive about enemies of the empire and find out how long it takes to get some knocks on your door. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/08/28/itys-a28.html
If that was remotely true half of lemmy would be in gitmo by now.
WeChat, or douyin
I’ve noticed a very pro-China shift on Lemmy since Trump became president. Yeah, Trump is awful, but it’s not like that makes China or Russia better. It makes them all bad.
That started well before he became president.
Pro or anti X nation state rhetoric is rarely helpful. I fully agree that blind support of another country just because it’s not the US is just silly. I don’t know what you mean by all bad. How’re you labeling all three of those countries?
Have you been to China? The thing that is affecting so many US users on xiaohongshu is waking up to how many aspects of Chinese daily life and society are actually better than the supposed best country in the world. This has been my experience on my most recent of many times in China. It shocking how many issues and stressors exist in America that don’t in China.
I don’t know what you mean by all bad. How’re you labeling all three of those countries?
Do you have your head under a rock? Over the past few years China has been putting the Uighur people in concentration camps while Russia has been invading and genociding Ukrainians.
No, China hasn’t. There has been no evidence.
We know how much information should get out of a state with complete control over the flow of information, via Palestine and Ukraine’s respective genocides. Instead of any of that, we have vague, contradictory accusations from Islamic extremists. The uighur people control Xinjiang, and thanks to investment it’s flourishing.
China killed Islamic extremism via education and improving material conditions; that’s not acceptable to the West, so they made up a story.
Neither the knee-jerk Americans nor you are being honest.
You don’t serve a cause, whatever cause it may be, by lying.
You’re right, hence why I encourage people to visit Xinjiang and try to find these millions-strong concentration camps or just, you know, talk to people from China, especially that region.
Besides a few people that lived most of their lives in the Middle East, not China, there are no witnesses or ‘victims’. And we all know who tends to recruit agents in the Middle East like they’re run by a evangelical death cult.
hence why I encourage people to visit Xinjiang and try to find these millions-strong concentration camps or just
By that logic, there have never been any detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Why, if there were, surely you could just walk into Gitmo and see them yourself! But you can’t! So they must not have every existed!
Interesting way of doing it.
The difference being, of course scale. But thank you for further proving my point. We know the names of every detainee in Guantanamo, we know the flights in and out, we have satellite pictures of it despite it being a facility that’s top secret.
And yet
Besides a few people that lived most of their lives in the Middle East, not China, there are no witnesses or ‘victims’.
Families in Uyghur communities around the world have referenced the camps with regards to their missing friends and relatives. Here are some from my city. It’s intellectually dishonest to suggest there are no witnesses or evidence.
Yes, as I said, western people with vague ties and no evidence of said ties making up stories.
We know what genocide looks like when a country has complete control over all communications … It looks like hd video. It looks like leaked audio. It looks like tens of thousands of refugees despite military blockades on all sides.
It is not vague stories and claims from people that voluntarily left decades earlier. It is not stories that you can immediately disprove on a visit. It is not the d-tier propaganda that people like you only believe due to racism and believing the Chinese are so fundamentally different that those doing the genocide would have not one single person defect and come forward. The Chinese are human. Not a hive mind. In even the most brainwashed examples of real genocide, a double digit percentage of those perpetrating it defect and try to tell the world. Not one single one has. None of the thousands upon thousands of people required in the act and cover-up of this ‘genocide’ have broke… Making it the most successful conspiracy in the history of the world… If it were true.
Why do you people stop having critical thinking skills the second China is mentioned?
No, because I don’t fall for the propaganda. I’ve met one of the NYT reporters on that and their sources were three Ugyhurs and trust me. I’m guessing you don’t speak Chinese and have zero knowledge of it besides MSN?
I think to each their own. My wife spent two weeks in China for work, and she’s still traumatized from it.
You definitely need to tell us what happened with your wife. Can’t just write something like that and leave it hanging!
Lol. Alright I’ll try to be as vague as possible while still trying to respect those involved.
My wife is in an industry where she has a lot of knowledge in what she went to college for. She had a friend living in China at the time (caucasian), who was also in the same field. The company her friend worked for offered to pay for my wife’s travel and expenses to work for them (Research and Development) on a contract job for two weeks. This company was Chinese, with Chinese workers. I believe there was only one other caucasian person in the mix at the gym (aside from her friend)
From the get go, it was a problem. My wife is caucasian and does not speak the language. Cheng Du where she needed to go. She had to do a connecting flight on the way there in China. It was very difficult to navigate and no one would help her. She eventually managed to get where she needed to go.
Once she was there. It was a nightmare. My wife is in the fitness industry. She has a degree in exercise science and kinesiology. This should give you a frame of reference for how healthy she lives her life and how fit she is. While in china, men would get off their bikes, take pictures of her, point and laugh. I believe they called her Fat tan farmer, far farmer or big lady. Again, my wife is lean and not fat in any way, but China’s standards of what the human body should look like seems insane. Everyone was paper thin. The gym she was working for had banned weights in their gym, weights!
It was very difficult to interact with people at all. Going to starbucks for example, they would either ignore her to her face and have people skip her or go into the back to hide from her. She was under the impression she would have a guide with her most of the time, but that was not the case. They took her out to dinner once, and that was it, they left her to fend on her own. She was not used to the fact that over there, red traffic lights are merely a suggestion (though this aspect is many counties)
The conditions of the area were extreme and changed from block to block. Some streets would have slums and stores made out of sheets of metal right across the street from what look like a 4 star hotel. Where she stayed was a more safe area (where her friend lived). It’s overcast there from pollution or whatever, that If the sun came out people dropped what they were doing to take pictures of it. And it wasn’t even that impressive compared to what we see in the US. It happened twice in the two weeks she was there.
The thing that finally broke her situation was that they handed her thousands of dollars in cash with the directive to go back to the US and go to other gyms, so she secretly record, steal their ideas and report back to them. I guess thinking about it now, they basically wanted her to be a spy for them. The whole experience strained the friendship between her and her friend, they argued and never spoke again after this trip.
Finally on her way back, she had her final surprise. My wife is generally a nervous flyer, and this event put her off from flying for a bit. On her plane back (she can’t remember what company) while they were passing over Japan, they hit the most turbulence she had ever been on. The plan started to violently shake and lose control, the oxygen masks deployed and everyone started crying. She honestly thought she was going to die and this was it. Obviously she made it home, but she’s never going back. I’ve always wanted to visit Japan, but the thought of flying that long and even entering Asia is still traumatizing to her.
Honestly this is really hard to pity all. This reads like white woman goes to new country with new culture and new language and hates everything she doesn’t understand. Such a ridiculous warrants a response otherwise others may take you seriously.
Half of your wife’s “horror” story is her not being used to Chinese culture or speaking any Chinese. People staring and taking photos? This happens in any country where white people aren’t typically present. They’re curious not rude.
Since she can’t speak Chinese it’s a huge assumption for you two to assume they were calling her a fat tan farmer? How would you even come up with that if you can’t understand it. Chinese people do comment on tall or big westerns but not in a rude manner. Again, because they may not have seen someone like your wife before and are curious.
She’s upset about a city having nice and bad parts? Walk down any big city in America. China modernized very recently. She’s upset about people taking photos of the pretty sky? She’s upset about a culture that doesn’t wait in lines?
Idk if it’s worth commenting on learning how other Americans run gyms as “spying.” What an overreaction.
And now your wife is walking around spreading how bad China is along with you. This is just sad.
Wait until you get to Japan and find many places won’t welcome white people, people will move away from you on the subway, most don’t speak English, there are also bad parts.
I am not saying a lot of these things are unique. Someone asked more information on why she was traumatized so I gave the information. I highly doubt I alone will really change anyone’s perception of anything.
People staring and taking photos? This happens in any country where white people aren’t typically present. They’re curious not rude.
As someone whose family is from south america, this is not a typical thing to do to foreign tourists. People don’t point and ridicule. If anything they engage with them more, because they want money. I am sure this happens in other countries as well, but right now we’re talking about China.
Since she can’t speak Chinese it’s a huge assumption for you two to assume they were calling her a fat tan farmer? How would you even come up with that if you can’t understand it. Chinese people do comment on tall or big westerns but not in a rude manner. Again, because they may not have seen someone like your wife before and are curious.
Her friend has been living there for years and speaks the language. Some of this happened while they were both together and she relayed what was said (which were also things said to her friend for the time she lived in China). If I wanted to make far fetched stories I could have actually spent time coming up with something creative.
She’s upset about a city having nice and bad parts? Walk down any big city in America. China modernized very recently. She’s upset about people taking photos of the pretty sky? She’s upset about a culture that doesn’t wait in lines?
She’s not upset about these things. This is mostly commenting on the overall thought that China is great everywhere. It has homeless people and poverty just like the rest of the world. Hell I even originally left out the fact that she saw people eating food off the ground and some sleeping in trash.
Idk if it’s worth commenting on learning how other Americans run gyms as “spying.” What an overreaction.
If you know another phrase for going to other gyms, recording classes, in secret, trying to not getting caught and emailing this information to another country to steal their information, by all means tell me and I will use it.
Wait until you get to Japan and find many places won’t welcome white people, people will move away from you on the subway, most don’t speak English, there are also bad parts.
There are bad parts everywhere in the world. I also have friends in Japan, and it wouldn’t be work related.
That’s a hilarious story.
That was indeed hilarious to read
It’s also probably made-up.
It was very difficult to navigate and no one would help her.
At airports and train stations in any major city in China, which includes any city that has an international airport, there is English signage everywhere. There are also information booths everywhere staffed by multilingual people. Further, even in the minor cities and such (if she somehow managed to wind up in a small city like, say, Jiujiang), white people have a common tactic they use: stand looking helpless and wait (it’s rarely over ten minutes) for someone to work up the courage to try their “very bad” (the words they will use) English on them and to help them.
Given that she arrived from the USA she started in a major city. Chengdu is another major city. I’m calling a lie on this unless she did this in, like, the 1980s. (That era of China was definitely a different world from today.)
The gym she was working for had banned weights in their gym, weights!
I’m in my 24th year here. I’ve lived in three cities and I’ve visited dozens more. I have never, not even once, seen a gym that didn’t have weights. Indeed most of the time, to my frustration, all they have are weights and a too-small mat for other exercises.
Again, I’m calling this made-up.
Where she stayed was a more safe area (where her friend lived).
LMFAO! The “safest” areas of New York City are far more dangerous than the most dangerous portions of the worst cities in China! Even in a city as tame as Ottawa (that’s in Canada for any Americans reading) there were neighbourhoods I didn’t feel comfortable walking through in the daytime and would not set foot in at night.
In China, by comparison, I cheerfully walked down the darkest of alleys at night even in economically depressed small cities like Huangshi. (You wouldn’t know of it. Just like you’d never heard of Wuhan before 2020.)
Anybody American (of all people!) thinking that parts of China are “dangerous” is incredibly obtuse.
They took her out to dinner once, and that was it, they left her to fend on her own.
Do you really want literally every American immigrant (or even non-white visitor, or Hell, even your own citizens!) in history to face you with her oh-so-privileged attitude here? Really? You might want a brief refresher.
The inability of Americans to look at how they treat others all while whining how they’re treated is truly stunning sometimes.
Finally on her way back, she had her final surprise. My wife is generally a nervous flyer, and this event put her off from flying for a bit. On her plane back (she can’t remember what company) while they were passing over Japan, they hit the most turbulence she had ever been on. The plan started to violently shake and lose control, the oxygen masks deployed and everyone started crying.
And this here seals the deal. The “trauma” wasn’t even caused by the Chinese or China. It was caused by air.
So here’s my take from the story (a take informed by almost a quarter of a century of watching Americans in China):
A whiny, middle-class white American woman wasn’t waited on hand and foot by the Chinese. Combined with the fact that she likely already had bigoted expectations of China led her to melt down into an even whinier pool of self-pity, interpreted everything around her in the most negative light possible, then confabulated even worse things, and finally got “traumatized” by the AIR (literally). And blames that on China too. (And likely blames sunspots on China as well.)
If she went to China in the '80s or maybe even the '90s her experiences with people staring at her and laughing might be true (though it’s odd that someone who at the beginning of the story didn’t speak a word of Mandarin somehow knew what people were calling her), though she likely misinterpreted the laughter and its intent. (Laughter and its usage varies across culture, but Americans are not exactly known for understanding that other cultures even exist not to mention subtle details like this.)
Again maybe in the '80s or '90s her observations of corrugated roofs next to palaces may be legit (although grossly exaggerated), but if this happened at any point in the '00s onward she’s just flatly lying. Chengdu today is a far more modern and good-looking city than any American city, including New York. (Perhaps especially New York since that whole thing of slums interspersed with palaces is something I saw in NYC…)
I won’t comment on being paid to spy on other gyms. I lack any experience with how gyms operate (though I might point out that literally anybody can just walk into a gym, pay a visitor’s fee plus an instructor’s fee, and get to see the operations of a gym directly in first person). That part could be true; there’s shady businesses everywhere (yes, including the USA) who do dumb things. That part gets dumped into the “I don’t know” pile along with a few other minor details mentioned above.
But most of that story? Reeks to high heaven.
I think to each their own. My wife spent two weeks in China for work, and she’s still traumatized from it.
What
Edit: oh his wife just can’t handle new experiences.
If you’re interested in what happened with the guys wife in China you replied to he made a comment on my post and answered
Thanks for linking!
This is it. Self hosting, federation, not for profit is the way. We need an internet that is made by just regular people for no better reason than it’s fun. Not just social media either. We need an entire open internet, free and clear of all ulterior motives (or more likely still having bad actors mixed in, but at least they’re not pulling any strings at the upper levels).
I don’t know how possible that is, but I know we need it.
Fully agree! Thanks for putting my thought into much better words.
The only issue I see now is how to surpass bad mods and admins? The balance between filtering off topic or bad content versus anything goes but then nazis come out seems to be a challenge plus power tripping.
That’s a never-ending process of everyone voting and discussing where the line is and where it should be.
There is no “final” solution, instead the solution is for people to collectively and continiously keep solving it every day.
I just don’t understand why it’s a problem that the nazis come out. Would we not rather they utter their opinions in the open so they can be refuted? That way people can also just ignore that user if they don’t like viewing what he has to say.
It’s not like they don’t exist just because we ban them here… They’ll go somewhere to discuss where only other people who agree with them is allowed to be.
Unless we’re talking direct threats or doxing I’m always an advocate for free speech online.
I used to think this way, but no. Nazis should be shunned and banned and feel unwelcome everywhere. No one should ever think their rhetoric is harmless or ignorable. Those who tolerate Nazis enable them.
And yeah, folks can wring their hands about slippery slopes and where we draw lines, but the beauty of federation is that if someone is too loose or too draconian, we can go somewhere with more agreeable policies. We can decide as a society where the line is drawn, and it’ll be fuzzy but as speech gets closer to Naziism, it will be rejected more and more places, as it should be.
Well said
I never said to tolerate them or not let them know why their ideology is fucked up.
The problem with your statement or at least how other people act on those same thoughts is that the cut off for when someone is a nazi becomes less and less.
I was called a nazi sympathiser and banned from a sub lemm.ee for asking if being against DEI equals being a nazi now.
Nobody wanted to even discuss it. They just assume the very worst of you, call you a nazi and then ban you.
That’s how you end up with echo chambers.
banned from a sub lemm.ee for asking if being against DEI equals being a nazi now
And the reason for the sudden concern for Nazis being suppressed is made clear now.
I addressed the slippery slope argument exactly as I meant to. If you find yourself repeatedly getting censored due to anti-Nazi sentiment, either go somewhere with looser tolerance or check yourself and ask what you are doing that crosses the line. I don’t see a problem here. An echo chamber is a problem when that’s the only information you are getting. Sometimes, it’s just a reprieve from spending time in uncomfortable spaces.
Regarding your specific case, I looked at the modlog for that and that doesn’t change my response at all. Right now, fascism is ascendant and you are an apologist for one of their policies.
Frankly, this is not the environment to be splitting hairs. For example, one can be anti-Islam (either as an atheist or adherent of another faith) but specifically attacking Palestinians over their faith while Israel is committing genocide against them is obviously going to be seen as taking a fascist/Zionist/pro-genocide (take your pick) stance.
Every battle doesn’t need to be fought all the time, and for anyone who struggles with that, it’s not surprising that such contributions are going to be unwelcome.
This might seem like a personal attack, and if so I apologize for lacking the skill to say this more gently. I assure you I put effort into trying to be neutral and helpful.
I did ask myself. I don’t think I did anything wrong here though…
Usually I get banned for being a liberal leftist cuck or whatever the right side calls you when they disagree with your opinion or can’t handle push back on theirs…
It’s just on leftist leaning subs I get banned for being a mazi…
You think me asking if being against DEI equals to being a nazi now, should result in an immidiately ban? Is that really crossing some line?
I’m not a mod and there was a lot more context in the thread. I didn’t look at any other history, but as a user I’d’ve ignored it and moved on. I also disagree with your stance and I have to separate my dislike of what you have to say with whether I think it crosses a line, but also making sure I’m not erring too far the other way.
At the end of the day, you were arguing in favor of a fascist policy and it’s not at all clear from the context I saw that you argued in good faith. I can see why a mod might make that call, but permanent ban is not one I’d’ve made. But also I can’t see how many other reports folks have made. I don’t know how many times they’ve been borderline and decided not to act.
Mods aren’t just enforcers of civility, they are curators of a social space. I have frequently supported mod actions that others saw as capricious or uneven just because someone was a big asshole in a space and I thought they made everything a worse place to hang out. In fact, on those occasions it was generally someone I’d blocked myself already.
So if you are frequently an argumentative asshole in that space, I’d have banned. If you were just having a bad day, I’d have let it go with at most a cooldown. But if I modded a large board where people are frequently contentious and I had a large backlog and I didn’t recognize you, there’s every chance I’d have glanced at that thread, wanted to keep everything calm and happy, and booted the person arguing pro-fasc talking points out of caution and mistrust.
I’m trying to give both sides a little grace here. I’ve never been a mod. I have no idea what it’s like. But I do support folks curating a space they think people will enjoy discussion and reading, and in the fediverse there are plenty of other places to go or you could start a new one of your own. You have infinite options and have been booted from one. Because the scope of a ban is limited in a way it wouldn’t be in a non-federated platform, I’m giving more leeway to the mods here.
Which comes back to my original point. You got removed from one space. That’s society warning you that you’re stepping into that gray area. That’s okay. Being opinionated and disagreeing with the zeitgeist are things I respect. I am not afraid to register my own disagreement, but I do it and take my downvotes and move on. I don’t stick around and argue the point when clearly folks aren’t having it. I made the point to readers who might not have a dog in the fight that it’s okay to disagree and in the end those are the only people you’re ever going to reach. You’re not going to argue me into agreeing DEI needs to be abolished, though I’d here arguments about how you’d do it better if you had a more cogent and novel than the fascist “do nothing and everything will be fine.” You’re not disagreeing to win me over, you’re disagreeing to not let the group-think go unchallenged. So you challenge it and move on, and I think you avoid bans and prevent an echo chamber.
Normally I’d try to edit this down in size as I’m sure I rambled a bit, but I don’t have time. FWIW I haven’t downvoted you because I don’t think you’ve been an asshole here, even if I disagree with you. Good luck, mate.
People are on edge. There’s basically a nazi president - or near as makes no difference. Now is not the time for hair splitters to shine, you know?
MentalEdge is right though, it’s a constant conversation that has to happen under a more even power dynamic - and deplatformimg actually does appear to work, given past examples.
Why is now not the time? If it’s now a lot of them comes out the woodwork it’s now you have a chance to change their mind or at least argue the other side so they hear opinions that doesn’t align 100% with their own.
A good example from some influencers recently is asmongold and hasanabi.
Asmon had some opinions about Israel/Palestine that were pretty aggressive. Instead of ignoring him Hassan had a multiple hour long conversation with him and at least to a degree, managed to change asmongolds stance.
Had he just said “nah I don’t talk to people with that opinion” , nothing would have changed…
This is the crux of the matter. Actual nazis don’t engage in good faith, and so it is harder to get people to trust in your good faith when actual nazis have all the power. The lines have been drawn for us, whether we act like it or not. If you’re able to pick your battles so well that you never engage with bad actors and you’re able to find common ground, that’s amazing. But you can’t go around expecting everyone to have an appetite for going out on a limb to split hairs with you, when many more people are more focused on protecting themselves from bad faith arguments.
The problem is that even your solution of letting them talk in the open and refuting their talking points is paradoxical. If they’re always corrected then that alone will drive them away from platforms for fester in private channels
Lemmy really is speedrunning the reddit arch.
This place is toxic af, way worse than reddit.
There’s a door, then. Make use of it. Vote with your feet and the adoring followers you brought with you will really show this place!
Would we not rather they utter their opinions in the open so they can be refuted?
It’s far easier to lie than it is to correct a lie. When the Nazis come out into the open they spew a stream of lies in minutes that can take months to refute, leaving the field to the lies to spread and fester.
And that’s even assuming you think refutation works at all. (Protip: it works so rarely that you can treat instances where it did as statistical aberration.)
Try one of their lines and I’ll refute it in 2 sentences…
None of what you said is a good argument for censorship in my opinion.
Refutation does not equal correction in this circumstance. Simply discrediting their rhetoric in a discussion does not necessarily reverse the effect it has on the less critical-minded. They can overwhelm via a strategy of “lie early, lie often”.
Nazi punks, fuck off.
Awwww, you poor thing.
They didn’t see you as a useful idiot so they leveraged their hatred for what you are and banished you.
Leopards are hungry on both sides of the line.
China is pretty sensitive about depictions of Mao, so it doesn’t surprise me.
Ironically enough it’s actually super popular in China to “Rent-a-Mao” or Chiang Kai-Shek or whoever else from China’s modern history. There are a lot of Mao impersonators, just like we have impersonators of Elvis.
Even positive ones? But what’s up with that?
It’s like how companies don’t like satirical use of their trademarks even if positive. Brand control. Or for China, propaganda control. They don’t want you to get comfortable using jokes about it.
Xiaohongshu does not tolerate political posts altogether, from what I read
Surprising to me too, it was a positive depiction of Mao.
I’m not really sure, it may be to do with how Jiang Zemin got called toad boy a lot.
Posting anything about any Chinese leader is verboten.
Weird. Weird how I post about Chinese leadership quite often on Weibo and haven’t been canned.
Here’s a thought: maybe it’s how you go about it that counts?
Criticism of Mao in particular is perfectly cromulent here. The Party itself criticizes Mao, especially for the Cultural Revolution, with some fairly harsh language.
But if you don’t know how to do it or when, then … ah … yeah, you’re going to get people pissed off at you.
the real name of this app in chinese is “Little Red Book”
surprised?
I can read Chinese. Maoist thought and censoring of Mao should not be connected lol
good point. i think i misunderstood your initial title
Sorry! :)
I still don’t understand the title.
Well yeah, Mao Zedong is kinda like Chinese Muhammad or Chinese Charlemagne (not supporting the guy, but still). Were you not expecting to catch some passionate attention? I mean, I’d also ask that of everyone; China is kind of known for censoring things, like Italians and cheese or Icelanders and their elves, so it’s weird to see people think the equivalent of “I’m going to a flock of crows dressed up as an owl because it’s exercising freeeeeeeedom!”
I don’t “support” that from a Chinese government perspective, as their journey for power and reach, like a lot of territorial groups, involved lots of death and domination over things that couldn’t “ethically” be owned, but from a service owner’s perspective, I mean, if it’s rightfully the child of your own two hands, it’s just your right to ban as you wish.
One of the most cringe things I’ve ever read.
Well you’re just rude.
You should move to China and stop posting in English comms if you feel this way.
I did the moving to China bit almost 24 years ago. I still post in English comms. Weird, that.
